Wonderful World Of Words: Words That Often Result in Malapropisms

Here is a list of words that commonly result in malapropisms (the misuse of a word):

• affect/effect-vb. to influence or have an effect on/n. an outcome or a result.
• compliment/complement-n. kind or praising remark/something that completes or brings to perfection
• stationary/stationery- adj. immobility/n. writing materials
  
• awhile/a while- Awhile, an adverb, is never preceded by a preposition such as for, but the two-word form a while may be preceded by a preposition. In writing, each of the following is acceptable: stay awhile; stay for a while; stay a while (but not stay for awhile).
• immanent/imminent/eminent-inherent or intrinsic/adj. About to occur; impending: in imminent danger/ adj. (1)Towering or standing out above others; prominent: an eminent peak. (2) Of high rank, station, or quality; noteworthy: eminent members of the community. (3) Outstanding, as in character or performance; distinguished: an eminent historian.
• already/all ready-adv. refers to time/refers to peoples preparation.
  
• alright/all right-avoid using one word.
  
• altogether/all together-adv. wholly or entirely/refers to a unity of time or place.
  
• amend/emend-v. to change or add to/v. to correct
  
• amount/number-n. used with mass nouns/n. used with count nouns.
  
• principle/principal-n. A basic truth, law, or assumption: the principles of democracy./adj/n. first, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree; chief. or relating to financial principal.
• breach/breech-n. a gap in or violation of something/ the lower or back part of something/ esp. the buttocks.
  
• capital/capitol- n. 1.the most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative centre. 2 wealth owned by a person or organization or invested, lent, or borrowed. 3 the excess of a company’s assets over its liabilities. 4 a capital letter. • adjective 1 (of an offence or charge) liable to the death penalty. 2 (of a letter of the alphabet) large in size and of the form used to begin sentences and names./ n. a building housing a legislative assembly.
• desert/dessert- something that is deserved or merited, especially a punishment( to get your just deserts) or an arid dry place./ sweet snack.
  
• dying/dyeing- duh.
  
• eatable/edible- at least minimally palatable/fit for human consumption.
  
• flammable/inflammable-they both mean: have the ability to catch fire.
  
• gibe/jibe- an insult/ to fit or coincide.
  
• hangar/hanger-
• grisly-grizzly-gruesome or horrible/ grayish
  
• immigrate/emigrate- to enter a country/to leave a country
  
• lay/lie-a transitive verb that requires a direct object (lay your pencil down)/ intransitive verb that never takes a direct object (lie down and rest, or lie down).
  
• loath/loathe- reluctant/to detest or regard with disgust
  
• pendant/pendent- item of dangling jewelry/ hanging or suspended.
  
• prophesy/prophecy-v. to predict (michael prophesies the end of today yesterday) /n. a prediction
  
• proscribe/prescribe- to prohibit/ to appoint or dictate a rule or course of action. or to specify a medical remedy.
  
• slew/slough/slue- many or lots/ a grimy swamp/ to swing around
  
• therefore/therefor- as a consequence(the evidence of guilt was slight therefore the jury acquitted the defendant / in return for (he brought the dildo back anreceiveded a refund therefor).
  
• timbre/timber- a musical term meaning tonal quality/correct spelling in all other uses.
  
• tortious/tortuous/torturous-relates to torts (civil wrongs)/ full of twists and turns (little richard's piano playing is tortuous)/ involves torture (the scat man's, david b from the real world new orleans, piano playing is torturous).
  
• venal/venial-purchasable/ pardonable or excusable.
  
• mane/main/Maine-duh.
  
• wrack/rack- to severely ocompletelyly destroy/all other definitions.
  
• who/whom- The traditional rules for choosing between who and whom are relatively simple but not always easy to apply. Who is used where a nominative pronoun such as I or he would be appropriate, that is, for the subject of a verb or for a predicate nominative; whom is used for a direct or indirect object or for the object of prepositionon. Thus, we write the actor who played Hamlet was there, since who is the subject of played; and Whom do you like best? because whom is the object of the verb like and To whom did you give the letter? because whom is the object of the preposition to. ·It is more difficult, however, to apply these rules in complicated sentences, particularly when who or whom is separated from the verb or preposition that determines its form. Intervening words may make it difficult to see that Who do you think is the best candidate? requires who as the subject of the verb is (not whom as the object of think) and The man whom the papers criticized did not show up requires whom as the object of the verb criticized (not who as the subject of showed up). Highly complex sentences such as I met the man whom the government had tried to get France to extradite require careful analysisin this case, to determine that whom should be chosen as the object of the verb extradite, several clauses away. It is thus not surprising that writers from Shakespeare onward have often interchanged who and whom. Nevertheless, the distinction remains a hallmark of formal style. ·In speech and informal writing, however, considerations other than strict grammatical correctness often come into play. Who may sound more natural than whom in a sentence such as Who did John say he was going to support? though it is incorrect according to the traditional rules. In general, who tends to predominate over whom in informal contexts. Whom may sound stuffy even when correctly used, and when used where who would be correct, as in Whom shall I say is calling? whom may betray grammatical ignorance. ·Similarly, though traditionalists will insist on whom when the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition that ends a sentence, grammarians since Noah Webster have argued that the excessive formality of whom is at odds with the relative informality associated with this construction; thus they contend that a sentence such as Who did you give it to? should be regarded as entirely acceptable. ·Some grammarians have argued that only who and not that should be used to introduce a restrictive relative clause that identifies a person. This restriction has no basis either in logic or in the usage of the best writers; it is entirely acceptable to write either the woman that wanted to talk to you or the woman who wanted to talk to you. ·The grammatical rules governing the use of who and whom in formal writing apply equally to whoever and whomever asimilarlylilarly often ignored in speech and informal writing.
• good/well- Good is properly used as an adjective with linking verbs such as be, seem, or appear: The future looks good. The soup tastes good. It should not be used as an adverb with other verbs: The car runs well (not good). Thus, The dress fits well and looks good.
• I/me- The question of when to use nominative forms of the personal pronouns (for example, I, she, they) and when to use objective forms (for example, me, her, them) has always created controversy among grammarians and uncertainty among speakers and writers. There is no problem when the pronoun stands alone with a single verb or preposition: every native speaker says I (not me) read the book; They told him (not he); The company bought a computer for us (not we); and so forth. But the decision is more problematic in other environments. ·When pronouns are joined with other nouns or pronouns by and or or, there is a widespread tendency to use the objective form even when the phrase is the subject of the sentence: Tom and her are not speaking to each other. This usage is natural in colloquial speech, but the nominative forms should be used in formal speech and writing: John and she (not her) will be giving the talk. ·When pronouns joined by a conjunction occur as the object of a preposition such as between, according to, or like, many people use the nominative form where the traditional grammatical rule would require the objective; they say between you and I rather than between you and me, and so forth. Many critics have seen this construction as originating in a hypercorrection, whereby speakers who have been taught to say It is I instead of It is me come further to assume that correctness also requires between you and I in place of between you and me. This explanation of the tendency cannot be the whole story, inasmuch as the phrase between you and I occurs in Shakespeare, centuries before the prescriptive rules requiring It is I and the like were formulated. But the between you and I construction is nonetheless widely regarded as a marker of grammatical ignorance and is best avoided. ·In other contexts the traditional insistence that the nominative form be used is more difficult to defend. The objective form sounds most natural when the pronoun is not grammatically related to an accompanying verb or preposition. Thus, in response to the question “Who cut down the cherry tree?” we more colloquially say “Me,” even though some grammarians have argued that I must be correct here by analogy to the form “I did” and few speakers would accept that the sentence What, me worry? is improved if it is changed to What, I worry? The prescriptive insistence that the nominative be used in such a construction is grammatically questionable and is apt to lead to almost comical pedantries. ·There is also a widespread tendency to use the objective form when a pronoun is used as a subject together with a noun in apposition, as in Us engineers were left without technical support. In formal speech or writing the nominative we would be preferable here. But when the pronoun itself appears in apposition to a subject noun phrase, the use of the nominative form may sound pedantic in a sentence such as The remaining members of the admissions committee, namely we, will have to meet next week. A writer who is uncomfortable about using the objective us here would be best advised to rewrite the sentence to avoid the difficulty.
• two/to/too-duh.
• augur/auger-be a sign of (a likely outcome)/a tool used for boring.
• censure/censor/sensor-express strong disapproval of/suppress unacceptable parts of (a book, film, etc.)/a device that responds to a signal.
  
• i rock/iraq/a rock- duh.
  
• complacent/complaisant-smug and self-satisfied/ which means willing to please.
• council/counsel/consul-an administrative or advisory body/advice or guidance/an official appointed by a foreign government to reside in a foreign country to represent the commercial interests of citizens of the appointed country.
• discreet/discrete- careful not to attract attention or give offence/separate, distinct.
• hoard/horde- a store of something valuable/ a disparaging term for a large group of people.
• ordinance/ordnance- an authoritative order/guns or munitions.
• palate/palette/pallet/pallette- the roof of the mouth/ is an artist's colorsor mixing colours/narrow hard bead/ one of the rounded armor plates at the armpits of a suit of armor.
• pedal/peddle-a foot operated lever/to sell goods.
• shear/sheer-cut the wool off (a sheep)/ as a verb means swerve or change course quickly or avoid an unpleasant topic, and as an adjective means nothing but; absolute, 'perpendicular', or '(of a fabric) very thin'.
• wreath/wreathe-with no e at the end means arrangement of flowers/with an e is a verb meaning envelop, surround, or encircle.
• canvas/canvass-heavy cloth similar to deniopinionsct votes, opinons, or sales from a group of people.
  
• ascent/assent-climb/agreement
• cite/sight/site-to quote or document/vision/position or place.
• conscience/conscious-a sense of right and wrong/awake.
  
• scents/sense/since/cents-duh.
  
• elicit/illicit-to draw or bring out/illegal.

Sources: oxford english dictionary website, dicitonary.com, michael and his chicago manual of style, my own wit.

Here are some other sweet 'cites' (j/k):
Common Errors in English Usage
Heteronyms-words that are spelled the same but have different meanings when pronounced differently.
Antagonyms-a single word that has meanings that oppose each other.

Leave me a comment if you have any other good malapropisms. Or just tell me about the ones you find interesting or especially challenging.